Sony Quietly Revises PS5 Slim: New Cooling, Replaceable Battery, and What’s Changed
Sony has quietly revised the PlayStation 5 Slim, and the changes were discovered not through an announcement but through a teardown. Console technician and modder Modyfikator89 opened up the new Marvel’s Wolverine Limited Edition PS5 Slim and posted the findings on X on September 30, revealing a new EDM-051 motherboard that is, in their words, much more interesting than it looks.
What changed inside the new PS5 Slim?
The revised motherboard has a redesigned layout with a simplified internal configuration. The standout changes:
- Easily replaceable CR2032 CMOS battery. On earlier models the battery sat beneath the cooling assembly, requiring extensive disassembly to reach. In the revised Slim it is far more accessible, which should simplify maintenance years from now when the cell eventually needs replacing.
- Revised cooling system. The liquid-metal interface is now closer to the PS5 Pro’s design, with a noticeably different heatsink construction and material compared with earlier Slim revisions. The protective layer around the APU exposes less area directly to the liquid metal, which should keep it better controlled around the processor.
- Newer, lower-cost and more optimized HDMI retimer implementation, which keeps the image stable and removes timing jitter.
Why it matters
Liquid-metal spillage and overheating problems have been reported on PS5 consoles over the years, and Sony has now refined the thermal design twice since the 2025 Slim revision. The easier battery replacement also addresses a long-standing concern with PlayStation systems, since a dead CMOS battery can cause real headaches. As Modyfikator89 put it: this is not just the same Slim with a different shell.
No official announcement
Sony has not formally announced the revision, and the revised units reportedly shipped with older manuals. The company has made similar silent hardware revisions throughout the PS5’s life. If your current PS5 Slim works fine, there is no reason to upgrade: the differences are under the hood and should not change the actual gaming experience.
Sources: Video Games Chronicle, Wccftech
Axee Davies is the founder of AxeeTech, publishing gaming guides, codes, and Windows how-tos since March 2013. A tech enthusiast for 13+ years — starting with smartphones and Android rooting — he now runs a site that puts out a new guide every day for Roblox players, traders, and Windows users. More about AxeeTech